meduse

Méduse

[Image: ‘Tête de Méduse’, 1618: Peter-Paul Rubens]

I have always regarded the myth of Perseus slaying the Medusa as an allegory of facing one’s own worst fears; of taking a leap of faith and destroying or overcoming that which is inconceivably horrific. One must vanquish such a terrible foe, or perish in the attempt. The fear itself has a momentum, a palpable quality that is indeed an additional threat, taken in concert with the original object of that fear. To end this runaway panic, one must strike definitively, thus neutralizing the threat itself and the dreadful nimbus of horror that radiates from it.

But what if, in the process, you slew the foe and became a monster far more terrible than your now dead adversary? What if you pitied your dead enemy as a fallen innocent? Indeed, the blackest and most fearsome nemesis might dwell inside one’s own being, having been there all along, with only a naïve Medusa having attempted to bar your way to the portal of the Abyss that is Human Soul…